Primal Mass
by TheEyesOfTheUnseenOne
Summary: My name is John Shepard, and I am one hundred and twenty-five years old. It seems I've outlived all the friends I made when I first appeared in Oros almost a century ago. It's surreal to remember the "before-time" as I explain it to the Wenja who ask.


**This was probably some of the most fun I've had writing in quite a while. This idea had been in my head for a bit as I've been pretty big into the Neolithic Revolution as of late. For anyone following me as an author and are infuriated I haven't updated Roma Invicta in forever and a day I apologize, but I really just need to find the spark I had for that story once again. It's as terrible for me as it is for you. This idea might come of something, but then there is another idea I have for a stone age society in Mass Effect as well. Anyway this is a really fun concept to play with and I hope everyone likes it, or hates it and let's me know. Progress is progress after all.**

* * *

My name is John Shepard, and I am one hundred and twenty-five years old. It seems I've outlived all the friends I made when I first appeared in Oros almost a century ago. It's surreal to remember the "before-time" as I explain it to the Wenja who ask.

So many memories, comrades, adventures, and...my love. It feels as though it is a distant whisper that I have to strain to hear, but in the stillness of sleep it sings to me as vivid as before.

For all the dreams of the before-time there is the ever-present nightmare which lurks in the shadows of my slumber. The Reapers. The destroyers of civilization, of everything all peoples of the galaxy had built for spirits knows how many millennia.

They probably think they won. I would not listen to the catalyst, instead I tried to destroy the entirety of the Citadel, and after I saw the first explosion I found myself hurdling towards the ground in to what I later found out was Oros.

I have no idea what happened after I hit the ground, I was knocked cold, but I woke up to the distant sound of people. After trying to get up I was met with the sight of an angry woman who forced me down and spoke in a language I couldn't even understand.

Realizing I was in a cave with primitive humans was a disorienting realization. Questions filled my head. Had the Reapers won and was this all that was left? Where was my crew, my teammates? The Normandy? Her...?

When Sayla finally let me walk out of my imprisonment with her help I was able to see this wasn't just a crazy cave woman, but a village of around three hundred individuals, and in the distant I could see some piss poor farming. I still remembered farming on Mindoir and their techniques were just pathetic. But it was an important indicator if a stray thought I had was to be believed. If I was in the past and there was primitive farming, that meant I was in the beginnings of the agricultural revolution. The basis of all human civilization.

At nightfall I observed the stars like my mother had taught me I realized I was indeed in the past. The stars of Earth were slightly off from what I remembered when my mother had taken me to the home world to observe my human heritage.

With this knowledge I set about learning the language and incorporating myself into the village life. I was still weak from my injuries but I helped by teaching basic farming techniques to the villagers who had tried their hand at cultivating the wheat. It took thousands of years in the before-time to figure out the basic things I taught them. My plan was to jump start human civilization, & the Wenja of Oros would be my tool.

When I met Takkar, the beast master. I had taught the Wenja for many moons in farming. He had been in the southlands finishing off the last remnants of a rival tribe. Having grasped the basics of the language, I gathered he was impressed with my work. A surplus was reached that would see the Wenja through winter with minimal hunting.

I learned much in those first winters. It was a time for hunkering down, and storytelling. I told many stories of my travels in the stars, and of the Reapers. I was just contributing to the conversation, but to the Wenja storytelling meant much more than it did to me. I noticed as they looked toward the night sky more. They asked about the alien races more, drew art of them, started to pattern their face paint in ways I showed the asari did.

They started to even notice how the planets moved. I taught them all I knew of astronomy. It might have gone over their heads, but it wasn't lost in translation. I remembered what my history teacher had said all those years ago,"The people of the past were not stupid, they just didn't know as much."

Takkar's abilities as beast master were invaluable in early domestication of the wildlife of Oros. Sabertooths, bears, Mammoths, Yaks, wild cattle, and wolves. All have at least been partially domesticated by now, and I know I've already changed much just by that.

My N7 basic medical training helped Sayla improve her practices as village healer. Life expectancy was up. By the first decade the village had gone from 300 to 700. Permanent structures of stone were being developed. I had no doubt that the Wenja due to my interference were the most advanced civilization in the entire world.

Finally, I began to map the area, and realized Oros was in Northern Germany and Poland. I was going to make sure we expanded out of Oros in time. We would need to be the first empire in history, an empire that would last, and take humanity to the stars long before we had in the before time.

With two thousand years ahead and twenty years in Oros. I was made the tribe leader, after Takkar went to walk with the spirits. Genetic therapy from the before-time has gifted me with a life much longer than those around me.

Alphabet, writing, etc. The means for keeping records were now available to the Wenja and I made sure all was written. The Reapers, the citadel, everything. The scribes still hate me for how much I make them write, but in the event the Wenja fall our records will survive.

Being made chief of the tribe also brought on many would be wives. I found one in Alka. While I could never love her in the way I loved the one from the before-time she bared me many children for which I am eternally grateful.

I have been chief for 85 years, and in that time, we have expanded through colonization, and incorporation of smaller tribes to span the entirety of northern Europe, save what was Sweden and Norway. Even with my teaching I cannot expand technology fast enough for our expansion, and in that I have appointed petty chiefs out of my most trusted lieutenants. Plans now are to move south, the untapped riches of the Mediterranean are a major point in which we can advance. I most likely have twenty-five years left, and they will count. Those Reaper bastards won't know what hit them.

* * *

Sayla Shepard lifted her head from the screen in front of her as she read over her distant ancestor's words for what seemed like the hundredth time, the same blue eyes burned with determination not seen beyond Earth in nine thousand years, "For you Shepard."

With that the first manned mission to mars lifted off of the Terran soil to seek the promised Prothean ruins.


End file.
